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A crime was committed in Washington DC today. As crimes in Washington, DC go, it’s a misdemeanor, I admit. But considering it was committed right in front of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the SEC, this particular crime is worth mentioning.

I’m at the ABA’s 4th Annual FCPA Institute. The first panel of the morning had Chuck Duross, Charles Cain, Mark Mendelsohn, Peter Clark, and a senior FCPA-investigating FBI agent named Brian Smith. Seriously, what a panel! And Mark ran it well: it wasn’t a “here are the cases from the past year.” It covered the self-disclosure calculus, the effect of Dodd-Frank, due diligence, and other excellent topics. We even got a couple of pieces of wisdom about declinations.

So what was the crime? Too few people. I know that the ACI conference is in a couple of weeks, but seriously, for a panel of this quality (the next panel had Vivian Robinson, and the one I’m listening to right now has Dan Newcomb and Stephanie Meltzer), you make an effort and come on out. There are maybe 50-60 people in the room.

So no, I’m not going to tell you what Charles Cain identified as two important elements of a program that influences him toward declining to prosecute. Or what Chuck Duross said about it. You should have been here.

(Apropos of nothing whatsoever, it might be good if your program had a really good and frequently revised risk assessment, and if your program could respond nimbly to adjust to misconduct when you discover it.)

[…] Cain at the recent ABA 4th Annual Institute on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (the subject of a blog post of mine). He said that if a company has a nimble program that can incorporate new information, that’s […]